The Mill Building (85 North 3rd Street)

Sixty-three residences run from the second floor to the penthouse; the first floor and cellar are commercial. The unit roster on the current Department of Finance roll gives the clearest picture of the inventory: fourteen units on the second floor, fourteen on the third, thirteen on the fourth, fifteen on the fifth, six on the sixth, and a penthouse. Recorded floor areas run from roughly 707 square feet to about 2,727 square feet, with the bulk of the building between 1,200 and 2,100 — a wide spread in recorded areas; verify interior measurements and the actual sales sample before deciding whether an average is informative.

Review each apartment’s layout and condition within the conversion’s existing structural grid and tenancy history. The plan's own disclosure makes the split explicit: approximately 39 of the 63 residences were electrically rewired for modern use and furnished with washer/dryer hook-ups, and the plan names 23 units — on every floor from the second to the sixth — that were not. The absence of those two upgrades does not establish the rest of the delivery condition or exclude other sponsor work; review the unit-specific scope and later renovation records. Confirm the specific apartment’s scope; the approximate 39 upgraded and 23 named non-upgraded units do not constitute a complete, exact schedule of all 63 residences.

Seven storage units are separately assessed on the current tax roll, out of ten created under the plan, and terraces appurtenant to certain apartments are limited common elements rather than separate lots. The roof carries a common deck available to all residential owners.

The commercial condominium beneath the residences has changed character completely. The plan describes Commercial Unit 1 as twenty-seven artist studios on the cellar and first floors, leased by the sponsor, with an express warning that the sponsor made no guarantee the studios would continue. They did not: the first floor has been rebuilt over the last fifteen years into a run of large ground-floor retail tenancies, and the commercial condominium is under separate institutional ownership. The 29-space garage in the cellar was likewise offered as a transient facility with no representation that residents would have access to it.

The Mill Building operates as an attended, full-floor-plate loft condominium with a compact amenity set — lobby attendance, roof deck, building laundry, storage — rather than the amenity program of the waterfront towers. Two utility structures shape the common charge, and both come straight from the plan: gas for heat, hot water, cooking and laundry is not separately metered and is carried in residential common charges, while electricity within each apartment is separately metered and paid by the owner, including the electricity consumed by the unit's own heat pump. In a building with fifteen-foot ceilings and very large window walls, that division is worth understanding before you underwrite a monthly.

The conversion carried the standard conversion-statute funding: a Reserve Fund under Local Law 70, estimated in the plan at $452,894.88 before sponsor credits, and a Working Capital Fund funded by a one month's common charges contribution from each purchaser at closing, with no sponsor contribution.

The tax position is the single most important operating fact in this building, and it has changed. The sponsor applied for a partial exemption under Section 11-243 of the Administrative Code — the J-51 program — and, in the plan's standard language, gave no guarantee it would be granted. It was. Department of Finance exemption records show a J-51 exemption with a fourteen-year term and benefits commencing in 2012 running on the residential unit lots. That benefit has now expired: the exemption value on the residential units fell to zero on the fiscal 2026 roll, and the fiscal 2027 roll carries no J-51 exemption on any residential unit in the building. Confirm on each apartment's tax bill that no other benefit applies.

That transition is not a footnote. It is the difference between the carrying cost a buyer would have modeled from a 2018 listing and the carrying cost that applies today, and it is why a comparable from more than about two years back needs its tax component checked against the current bill. Pull the current bill on the specific unit; the roll no longer shows the J-51 exemption, and the bill shows whether any other benefit applies.

Board approval: None. The Residential Board holds a right of first refusal on any sale or lease of a residential unit. Beyond that right, the plan states the board has no power to approve or disapprove purchasers, and the By-Laws impose no owner-occupancy requirement.

Subletting, pied-à-terre, LLC and trust purchases: Subletting permitted with conditions; pied-à-terre, LLC and trust purchases not documented — confirm in the declaration, bylaws and house rules. Confirm the current lease-registration procedure and any fee with the managing agent.

Pets: Not addressed in the offering plan materials reviewed. Confirm current house rules before writing an offer.

Flip tax / transfer fee: No flip tax is described in the offering plan. Each purchaser contributes one month's common charges to the Working Capital Fund at closing. The plan also provided for a sponsor's-attorney fee of $700 on closings outside Manhattan — a sponsor-era term, not a resale term.

Washer/dryer: No unit was delivered with machines. Roughly 39 units were furnished with hook-ups; the plan names 23 that were not. Verify the specific apartment against the plan schedule and the current certificate of occupancy.

Loft Law: The building entered the condominium as an Interim Multiple Dwelling under Loft Board jurisdiction, with the plan providing that IMD tenants would become rent-stabilized on the Loft Board's final rent order and would not be evicted for failure to purchase. Ask whether a final rent order has issued and whether any regulated tenancy remains in the building.

Property taxes: J-51, fourteen-year term, benefits commencing 2012, now expired. The fiscal 2027 roll shows a zero exemption on the residential units.

Recent sales

Recent closings at this building, from The Roebling Research Library. Prices are the transfer amounts recorded with the NYC Department of Finance; apartment-level detail is checked against the building’s own file in The Roebling Research Library before publishing.

Market read. Most recent trades (2026 to date) cleared a median $1,658/sf (recorded) across 4 sales. Median listing discount 2.2% from the last ask — a recurring negotiation gap worth pricing into any offer or listing strategy.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-02350-7501; each condominium apartment is its own tax lot). Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified in The Roebling Research Library. Not all transactions cross-verify with ACRIS records — sponsor and LLC purchases sometimes record at stipulated values rather than market price; square footage from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.

Model the tax at the current, un-abated bill. The J-51 exemption is gone as of the fiscal 2027 roll. Any monthly figure derived from a listing or a comparable more than two years old is wrong in the same direction.

Find out which apartment you are buying. The plan divides the building into roughly 39 units the sponsor rewired and fitted with laundry hook-ups and 23 it did not. That historical split establishes two specific upgrades, not the principal current renovation need; assess condition and subsequent work apartment by apartment.

Ask about Loft Law residue. The building converted out of Interim Multiple Dwelling status under Loft Board jurisdiction. Confirm that a final rent order has issued and whether any rent-stabilized tenancy survives anywhere in the building.

The retail and the garage are neighbors, not amenities. Commercial Unit 1 and the Parking Unit were retained by the sponsor and are separately owned. The plan expressly disclaims any guarantee that garage spaces would be available to residents, and the ground floor has already changed use once.

Expect gas in the common charge. Heat, hot water, cooking and laundry gas are master-metered and carried in common charges; only apartment electricity is yours. In a loft with fifteen-foot ceilings, that matters.

Condominium mechanics are simple. Right of first refusal, no board approval, no owner-occupancy requirement, no flip tax in the plan, one month's common charges into the working capital fund at closing.

Lead with what the building is. A 1910 lithography loft that became residential by BSA variance in a manufacturing district, with fifteen-foot ceilings, wood columns and factory windows. Compare those features with specific alternatives without claiming a market-wide count or an automatic price premium.

Prepare the tax conversation before the first showing. J-51 has expired. A seller who presents the current bill and a modeled carrying cost controls that conversation; a seller who lets the buyer's attorney discover it does not.

Document the renovation. The plan distinguishes electrical and laundry-hookup work in different apartments; provide scope, permits and sign-offs for the specific home without treating that distinction as proof of two general grades of delivery.

Price on the line and the condition, not the building average. The recorded areas run from under 800 to over 2,700 square feet; verify interior measurements and assess relevant sales with size and condition adjustments rather than requiring identical homes.

If you're considering The Mill Building, also evaluate:

• Austin Nichols House (184 Kent Avenue) — the Cass Gilbert warehouse conversion on the waterfront; Williamsburg's other great loft building, at far greater scale
• The Gretsch (60 Broadway) — the Southside guitar-factory conversion; the closest peer in provenance and volume
• Warehouse 11 (214 North 11th Street) — loft-referential new construction on the Northside; the reference against the thing itself
• 125 North 10th Street — the Northside low-rise condominium alternative, with parking
• 127 Kent Avenue (The Sixth) — the newest brick-and-factory-window building on the Northside, three blocks north
• The Edge — South Tower (22 North 6th Street) — the amenity-tower alternative; service depth against loft volume
• Two Northside Piers (2 Northside Piers) — the other early waterfront tower, with esplanade access
• The Clock Tower (1 Main Street) — the trophy loft conversion in DUMBO; the borough's benchmark for converted volume
• 70 Washington Street — DUMBO's largest loft conversion, and the standard reference for warehouse-scale living in Brooklyn